


You and Me (are Young and In Love)

by perfectlystill



Series: A Real Thing [1]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Eloping, F/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 20:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21087566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: “No, I mean, I don’t have a true understanding of how forever feels, or how long it really is. In theory, my brain gets it, but it can’t really do more than that. I’m going to love you for that long, though, MJ. You’re going to get so sick of me loving you. Your husband is going to be like,” he pauses, dropping his voice as low as it goes, “this guy is still telling you he loves you?” He wrinkles his brow. “Wait. Not in a creepy, invasive way or anything. You know, I’m going to respect your boundaries and choices and everything, I just meant--”“Do you want to marry me?”Peter freezes. “Huh?”Peter and MJ being young, dumb and in love.





	You and Me (are Young and In Love)

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to [Fer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamingiminlovewithyou/pseuds/screamingiminlovewithyou), who told me to write the fic two days ago. Title from Ingrid Michaelson's "Young And In Love," and I'm sure there's a debt owed to Taylor Swift's "Lover," too.

Peter pulls the sleeves of MJ’s hoodie over his palms. He inhales, nudging his nose underneath the collar. It smells like her: sweet and earthy and a bit like fabric softener. Snuggling underneath the fluffy, burgundy blanket previously folded over the back of her parents’ sofa, Peter lets his eyes drift shut. 

The Jones’s blast the air in the summer. Peter got a taste of it last year while crawling through MJ’s window at three in the morning, under the cover of darkness and as much stillness as there ever is in the city.

Her parents weren’t too fond of him then, for dating their only daughter, for being Spider-Man, and for the mass murder allegations. 

But MJ’s stubborn, and Peter tried to be just as stubborn; he didn’t want her in danger, and he didn’t want her worrying, but he couldn’t change her mind. Peter suspects there was a selfish part of him that didn’t really want to change her mind, even if he thought there was a real possibility of it happening.

Which he didn’t.

Once MJ decides something, she’s a force bigger and more convincing than every media outlet, stronger than every superhero and villain combined, determination packed tight and solid in her bones. 

MJ decided she was Peter’s girlfriend, and the thrill of it reminded Peter why being alive is worthwhile, giving him another reason not to surrender. 

He didn’t want to give her up.

Doesn’t want to. Can’t imagine a world where he’d ever want to. 

Last summer, Peter would end up back in her room before sunrise, limbs aching and spirit exhausted. They’d steal kisses during one of the only times they were able to find each other. First, sitting underneath her windowsill, his legs spread in front of him, bruises mottling on his neck and cheek. Again, after tiptoeing to her bathroom. MJ cleaning long, shallow cuts on his shoulders, his abs, his thighs.

Peter would hiss. She’d flatly tell him to stop being so dramatic. And then she’d brush his hair back, tilting up to press a soft kiss against his forehead, lips lingering, damp washcloth and brush of her knuckles at his jaw. 

He told her he loved her there, his back against the edge of her bathtub, squinting against the bright light making her glow. 

MJ rested the back of her hand against his forehead as though checking for a fever. “Did you hit your head?” she asked, dropping the washcloth into the tub, running her hands through his hair, maybe checking for a bump. But Peter could see the feeling in her eyes, open and surprised, unsure and hopeful.

“No.” He shook his head once. "I didn't."

She exhaled, swallowed. Her eyes flit around his face, afraid to settle. “Then I do, too.”

Peter smiled even though it stretched a scrape on his face, making it sting. “Awesome.”

Later, when he’d cleaned up, bandaged where necessary, when they were more comfortable with each other, they’d lie in her bed, stealing kisses there, too. 

The thrill of it rocketed up Peter’s spine like they were doing something wrong, more than the kisses underneath her window or in her bathroom. MJ’s mouth was warm and her hands felt good, thumb smoothing over his eyebrow, other palm spread against an unmarred patch of skin at his back. Her little sighs, and her toes barely making contact with his shin, and her smile against his lips. 

It all felt so unbelievably good. 

Her curtains were open enough to let in the streetlight across the way, but her bedside lamp had long been turned off. Her fingers carded through his hair, scratching at his scalp. Peter pillowed his head against her shoulder, nose at her collarbone. 

He’d have to leave soon, the darkness of the night beginning to lighten to navy blue. 

“I love you, Peter,” she had whispered. 

He splayed his palm against her ribs. “I love you, too.”

“I know.”

“So much.”

She breathed out a quiet laugh. “Me too, loser.”

He stayed longer than he should have that night, mind hazy and unfocused in a way that was relaxing after the concentration required while being a vigilante, fighting not only to protect people, but to clear his own name. 

Peter didn’t think about forever then, but as he watches MJ’s careful steps, two steaming mugs of hot chocolate in her hands, blowing her curls out of her face, he thinks about it now. 

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking at me funny.”

“Just thinking about how much I love you,” he says, sitting up straighter and letting the blanket fall down his shoulders before taking the proffered mug. 

Michelle hums, lifting the blanket and sliding in next to him. Her hand tilts as she adjusts the poly-cotton, and Peter reaches out on reflex, steadying the cup so the cocoa doesn’t spill. When she’s settled, she decides, “No, that can’t be it.”

“Why not?”

“Because then you’d look at me like that all the time.”

Peter laughs, wrapping both palms around the warm ceramic. “I was just thinking, you know, that I love you so much. And I think I could like, love you forever.” He lifts the mug to inhale the rich, chocolatey scent, a little dash of cinnamon. “I’ll love you forever.”

“What?” She slurps her hot chocolate. “You just decided that?”

Peter shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Forever is a really long time.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she asks, turning to look at him. She widens her eyes playfully, mouth twisted into a little smirk, and, _god_, yeah, he’s going to love her forever. 

“No,” he admits.

“Wow,” MJ says, mock-offended. 

“No, I mean, I don’t have a true understanding of how forever feels, or how long it really is. In theory, my brain gets it, but it can’t really do more than that. I’m going to love you that long, though, MJ. You’re going to get so sick of me loving you. Your husband is going to be like,” he pauses, dropping his voice as low as it goes, “_this guy is still telling you he loves you?_” He wrinkles his brow. “Wait. Not in a creepy, invasive way or anything. You know, I’m going to respect your boundaries and choices and everything, I just meant--”

“Do you want to marry me?” 

Peter freezes. “Huh?”

She bites at the corner of her mouth the way she does when she’s unsure of something. “My husband wouldn’t be annoyed at you loving me forever if you were my husband.”

“Oh.” Peter breathes. “That makes sense.”

“So?” she asks. 

“Wait.” He swallows. “You’re not… Are you serious?”

“Oh, sorry.” She shakes her head. “That wasn’t very romantic.”

Peter blinks. 

MJ’s hands tighten almost imperceptibly around her mug. She leans forward to take a sip, her bangs swinging to cover half her face. 

“MJ.”

“There’s a new documentary on Netflix about the Golden State Killer we could watch.”

“MJ,” Peter insists. “Are you serious?”

She clears her throat, but she doesn’t look at him, reaching for the remote on the coffee table. Her hand tremors, and he can only see because of the spider bite. Her hot chocolate sloshes in her mug, a few drops dripping down the ceramic, leaving wavy trails of brown. 

“MJ, I’ll marry you.”

“Peter, I swear,” she warns, remote clattering back onto the wood. She sets her mug down, leaving a small puddle around it. “If you’re fucking with me, I’ll kill you.”

“I’m not.”

“You promise?”

Peter sets his own mug onto one of the heavy, marble coasters. Her parents are supposed to be out of town all weekend, but he doesn’t want to risk them barging in and catching him being callous with their furniture. They still don’t like him, per se, but he’s made some inroads.

Agreeing to marry their freshly 18-year-old daughter probably won’t help his case, but her eyes are bright, and he wants MJ to look at him like she’s looking at him right now forever and ever and ever.

He grabs her hands. Her skin is impossibly soft, and she squeezes like she needs the reassurance. 

“I promise,” he says.

She surges forward, kissing him. “Can’t yet. You’re not old enough to get married.”

He laughs. “Three weeks.”

“Twenty-two days, actually,” MJ corrects.

“Are you going to count down?” Peter asks. 

She smiles, and her eyes are glassy with joy and love. For him, Peter reminds himself. Feels it like a pinch against his skin, shocking and wonderful and good. He’s awake, and he’s alive, and MJ wants to marry him. 

“Yeah,” MJ says quietly. 

“Me too.”

She kisses him again, sweet and warm, and Peter tucks her bangs behind her ear, lets his palm settle on her neck, feels her pulse thrumming against his thumb. 

The hot chocolate she spilled is going to leave a stain on the coffee table they won’t notice until she bumps into it on the way to her bedroom, and they won’t get around to watching the documentary tonight, and May will text him about being safe.

None of that will dent the feeling of MJ’s arms wrapped around him, surrounded by the scent of her embedded into her sheets, her breath warm against the nape of his neck.

The promise of forever is still scary and unfathomable, but it’s exciting, too. 

Possible. 

Probable.

Peter wakes up on August 10th aware that it’s his birthday in a way that feels childlike. 

Sleep was hard-won, not because of stress or nightmares, but because MJ sent a text where she referred to herself as his fiance, and it made Peter’s entire body light up. He’s reread the simple message countless times by now, and it never loses its magic: _I’m the best fiance in the world, and you know it, Parker._

The thing is, he _does_ know it. 

He knows it like he knows May will make him burnt Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast, that Ned will come over with a new Lego set to build, and that MJ will whisk him away for a date this evening, and then they’ll get married, and he can call himself her husband.

Peter’s heart feels full in his chest when he thinks about it, like it isn’t big enough to hold all the love he has for her, like it’s stretching and growing to try and contain the uncontainable. 

The faint scent of burning begins to waft in as May knocks on his bedroom door. “Peter? Honey?”

“Yeah?” he calls, up on his elbows.

She cracks the door open, sticking her head in. “Happy birthday, sweetie. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

“Thanks, May.” 

Peter smiles, echoing the one on May’s face. 

“Gosh. Eighteen.” She shakes her head. “You grew up so fast, Peter. Everybody always says that, but it’s true.”

Peter nods. “Yeah, um. I guess.”

“I know it doesn’t feel that way to you. But it feels like just yesterday Ben was teaching you how to ride a bike.” Her smile doesn’t falter, but her eyes soften, growing misty. “He’d be just as proud of the man you’ve become as I am.”

“Thanks.”

She sniffles, and then her eyes widen. “The pancakes!”

Peter laughs as she turns around, his door slowly creeping shut as she screams, “Five minutes!”

“Love you, May!”

She throws out the most burnt pancakes, but there’s a decent stack of salvageable, overdone Mickeys. None of the three circles forming the mouse are quite the same size or shape, but Peter wouldn’t want them any other way.

“Ned should be here in about an hour,” Peter says, slathering an indecent amount of butter onto a pancake.

“Do you know what he got you this year?” May asks.

“Legos.” Peter shrugs.

May laughs before taking a sip of coffee. “I’d say we should all get lunch, but I know you boys will be busy building.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“What about MJ?” May asks.

Peter’s fork slips, and the metal scrapes against his plate. He winces. “What about her?”

“Is she coming over, too?” May eyes him over the rim of her mug, confusion and suspicion at the edges of her expression.

“Later.” Peter coughs. “She’s treating me to dinner.”

May nods. “Are you coming home tonight?”

His face floods with heat. “Uh, yeah. Yep. That’s the plan.”

MJ’s parents are home, and he only ever sleeps at her apartment when they’re not. May is fine with it, or pretends to be, having embarrassed Peter with more than one talk about being safe - with Michelle, with himself, and with their hearts. She had the same conversation with MJ while Peter was on patrol. He can still viscerally feel the mortifying terror of MJ quirking an eyebrow, not bothering to get up from her spot on his bed as she lowered her book and informed him that his aunt has a lot of good sex advice.

MJ’s assured him that her parents would be a lot less chill about it. 

From Peter’s tense interactions with them, he believes it.

“Okay,” May says. “If you change your mind, let me know.”

“Yeah, of course.” Peter shoves a large bite of buttery, syrupy pancake into his mouth - an entire ear - to distract from how embarrassing she is, and how grateful he is that he feels like he could tell her anything, even if it’s best to keep some secrets to himself, held in the safe space between MJ and him.

He wants to tell May they’re engaged and getting married, but when he floated the idea as he and MJ scrolled through overly expensive wedding rings, she smacked him upside the head. 

“What?” he asked, rubbing at the spot. It didn’t hurt, but it was the principle of the thing.

“If you tell her, she’ll stop us.”

Peter pressed his mouth together.

He could see May having her reservations and asking if he was sure, really confronting them with the harsh realities of marriage. They probably haven’t considered everything, if he’s being honest. But Peter knows she’d respect their choice, no matter how shortsighted and stupid she might think it is. 

Then MJ had said that May would tell her parents. 

She would. She absolutely would. 

She would call up Mrs. Jones all, “Can you believe our kids are getting married? I’m going to be an aunt-in-law! Well, just an aunt to another person, really, but you know what I mean. Come around for spaghetti Sunday night.”

And MJ’s parents would freak out.

They wouldn’t be able to stop it, not really, but it’s more drama than Peter and MJ want. Despite her parents’ instability and neglect, MJ doesn’t want to distance herself from them forever, because that’s a forever that feels awful to consider. Mr. and Mrs. Jones have gotten better since the blip, and MJ loves that they’re trying. 

She loves them.

So, he can’t tell May, and it makes him feel guilty and antsy, but she’ll forgive him. She’s the most forgiving person he knows. 

“MJ leaves for Boston soon,” May says. 

“Yep,” Peter agrees.

“You’ve talked about long-distance?”

Peter chews another piece of pancake, humming in affirmation. 

“I know. I know you have.” May waves absently. “But, Peter,” she continues, tone turning serious. “During our second year of marriage, Ben and I lived apart when he moved to the city, and it was so hard. You have to talk to each other, and you have to be honest.”

Peter washes his food down with a gulp of orange juice. “We are. We do.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. You and MJ will be fine. I just don’t want to see either of you get hurt.”

“I know, May. Thanks.”

“It’s your birthday, and I’m being so…” She waves her hands back and forth like she’s trying to stave off tears, chuckling. “But hey, the pancakes are better this year, right?”

Peter laughs. “So much better. Ben’s proud of you, too, you know?”

“No!” She points at him, stern. “That’s not fair. Now you’re trying to make me cry.”

“I’m not. I promise.” Peter gets up, wraps his arms around her shoulders and rests his chin on her head. May hugs him back. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Peter.”

He wants to tell her. He wants to tell her that watching her and Ben taught him what love looks like, how it hugs, how it smiles and laughs, how it warms you inside and out, makes you feel safe, and gives you space to feel everything else, too. 

He wants to tell her he’s going to marry MJ, that he’s sure, because he watched her with Ben for years.

Instead, he squeezes May tighter.

Ned gifts Peter _The Temple of Doom_ Lego set, and it’s incredible. They clear the floor of Peter’s room - shoving clothes, pencils and a random rubik’s cube into the corners - and spend the late morning building. It doesn’t take as long as some of the other sets, but when May offers to take them out to lunch, they decide to order pizza instead. 

Peter folds his slice, biting off the end.

“And my mom is freaking out about oversleeping and missing our flight. But like, it’s at 6 AM, so we can just grab a later one if we miss it.”

“Maybe,” Peter kind of agrees. 

Ned’s heading to Stanford in a week. Even farther away than MJ. Peter knows they’ll miss each other something fierce, but it’ll be good. Ned has family on the west coast, and he’s excited for milder winters. 

Things are changing.

“Ugh, sorry. I’m totally making this all about me, dude. Your classes don’t start until September, right?”

“The first Monday.”

“Awesome!” Ned enthuses. “I was talking to my roommate about coordinating our dorm, and we’ve decided on forest green and navy blue.”

Peter hasn’t told Ned, either. 

He would, but May would smile at Ned, and Ned would spill his guts. He was pretty good about keeping Spider-Man under wraps, and this secret is Spider-Man level, but Ned can only do so much. MJ comes up super often because May loves her, always wants to know what she thinks about whatever stupid, dorky thing Peter and Ned are doing, and Ned would blab. 

He’d think telling an adult is a good idea. 

May would be a good adult to tell. 

But they’re adults now, too. All 18. Completely legal. 

Old enough to get married. 

Ned would probably buy that logic, hook, line and sinker, but it feels disingenuous to Peter, and MJ had said, “Just us. You and me. He knew about Spidey before me. Like, a _long time_ before I did.”

And so Peter promised her, “Just us.”

It’s probably not what marriage is, but it’s part of it. Peter is pretty sure. 

Peter and Ned sprawl across the sofa, halfway through _Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom_, when Peter hears MJ walking up the stairs. Yeah, he knows the weight and rhythm of her gait. Yeah, it’s probably weird. And yeah, he’s been listening for her to stop by for the last 30 minutes. 

He jumps up, smoothing out his jeans.

“MJ?” Ned mumbles.

“Yeah.”

Ned looks away from the television, narrowing his eyes. 

“What?” Peter asks, running his fingers through his hair, ducking to catch his reflection in the window. It doesn’t work very well, but he pats the curls down as best he can.

“You’re so weird,” Ned says. 

“Thanks,” Peter replies, half-offended.

Ned finds him boring, apparently, eyes glued to the television again. “You’re acting like MJ is someone you have to impress. You got her, dude.”

Peter hears her pause at the top of the stairs, probably out of breath. _God_, he loves her. 

“I don’t have to,” Peter argues. “I want to.”

Ned doesn’t respond.

He dated Betty for a summer, and he went on a couple of dates with Zoha that fizzled out, but he’s never been in love, not properly. Peter tried to explain with a long-winded metaphor about Jedi and the force, except Ned kept saying Jedi aren’t allowed to fall in love: “Anakin, hello?”

It felt weird, anyway. Peter loves May, and he loves Ned, and he loves Happy, and he still loves Ben and Tony, but all of those types of love are different - specific. He loves MJ, and even if Peter was capable of imagining a time where he and MJ break up, where he falls in love with some nameless, faceless person instead, he thinks that that love would be different, too, unaided by MJ sticking pencils in her bun when it’s half past midnight and they’re studying for finals, her ice cold nose brushing against his cheek, the way she has to catch her breath if she walks up more than two flights of stairs. 

He loves all those things about her, but they’re not why he loves her, and it’s all convoluted and impossible to explain, except he knows it’s wonderful. He knows he wouldn’t trade the way he feels about her for anything, even if it crashed and burned and he fell in love later with that nameless, faceless person.

He’s not doing that, though.

Peter’s marrying MJ. 

And for the rest of his life he gets the privilege of having her cold nose nudge at his cheek because he made her laugh while walking hand-in-hand to Delmar’s.

She knocks on the door, and Peter rushes to answer it. 

Her smile is crooked, and her one tooth sticks out, and he bounces up to kiss her. 

“Happy birthday,” she says. She leans forward, adding in a breath of a whisper that echoes loudly around Peter’s skull, “fiance.” She’s looking at him like she knows how ridiculously good it feels to hear her say that, like saying it feels just as ridiculously good. 

“Thanks.” Peter grins, grabbing her hands and tugging her inside. 

“Hey, Ned,” she says over Peter’s shoulder.

“MJ,” he calls back. “We’re watching Indiana Jones.”

“Oh, uh, I think MJ and I were going--” Peter starts.

“Let him finish the movie, Peter. I don’t want to get a reputation for being unreasonable.”

“Get?” Peter asks. 

“Shut up.” She pulls her hands away, letting her backpack drop from her shoulders and setting it carefully against the wall before kicking off her shoes. She wraps her fingers around Peter’s wrist for balance. “You don’t win nationals by being reasonable.”

“You probably could.”

She hums, mouth twisted. “Yeah, but I have empirical evidence that being unreasonable works, and you just have an unproven hypothesis.”

“I love when you do that.”

“Accuracy is how close something is to the true value, and precision is how close different measurements are to each other.”

“That’s stupid hot,” he tells her. 

Ned makes a gagging noise. 

“It’s freshman chemistry, so it certainly isn’t smartly hot,” she says, pulling Peter back to the sofa.

MJ pays attention to the movie for about three minutes before she distracts herself by drawing invisible patterns onto the back of Peter’s hand. He’s come a long way, because usually Peter can focus on a movie - especially one he and Ned have watched a handful of times - while MJ touches him. That wasn’t how it used to be. His entire brain would melt down, sirens ringing in his ears, and he’d have to try very, very hard to breathe, failing to think of anything else but her skin touching his. Even something as innocent as her thumbprint between two of his knuckles caused his entire body to heat up, embarrassing flush reaching his ears. 

There’s no risk of turning red now, but Peter can’t process Indy cutting the bridge in half when he and MJ are supposed to be getting married right now. 

No offense to Indiana Jones, but marrying Michelle Jones is infinitely more thrilling to Peter than watching him dangle off a bridge. 

Peter’s brain plays word association: bridge, Tower Bridge, MJ kissing him for the first time, MJ asking to marry him, marrying MJ, MJ MJ MJ. 

Useless.

The movie can’t end quick enough. 

When the credits finally roll, Ned cracks his neck and stands. “I relinquish birthday duties to you,” he says, holding out his hands to MJ like he’s offering a gift.

“You want to get ice cream first?” she asks.

Peter might actually kill her. It would probably make marrying her more difficult, but it’s a chance he might have to take. 

“Nah,” Ned says. “I have to pick my sister up from her friend’s house. Rain check, though. Happy birthday, Peter.”

“Thanks, Ned.”

When Ned leaves, Peter looks at MJ. “So?”

“So?” 

He stares.

She stares back, blank, and if she hadn’t said the word _fiance_ earlier, Peter would believe she completely forgot that he’s 18, and they’re supposed to elope today. 

He almost believes she forgot, regardless, or maybe changed her mind and doesn’t want to tell him, because it’s his birthday and she might not want to marry him anymore, but she still cares about his feelings. 

But then the corner of her mouth twitches in want of a smile.

“We should go,” MJ says. “I have big plans.”

“This is a coffee shop,” Peter says, looking up at the sign.

“You can _read_?”

Peter leans against her. He doesn’t know why he whispers like it’s a secret: “I thought we were going to City Hall?”

“Do you even know how this works?” she asks, shuffling over to let someone pass on the sidewalk.

Peter frowns. “No?”

MJ shakes her head, and she tucks her chin to her chest, tucking her smile away, and Peter tucks the image into the corner of his heart. 

MJ ushers him inside, instructing him to pick a table while she orders. There’s a cramped spot by the window, every small table around it occupied, so he picks a place toward the back, but not too close to the bathrooms. It’s a bit dim, but cozy. His leg bounces. 

Curls spiral out of the loose bun at the nape of MJ’s neck while she stands at the counter. She wears her favorite scuffed Converse and a pair of shorts with a few loose threads dangling down her thighs. Peter gets distracted by her legs, long and lean. She glances over her shoulder, shoos him away, and he stares at a painting of sunflowers until his vision goes blurry. 

She comes back with two mugs and slides his across the table. The latte art reads _Happy Birthday_. 

“Wow. Thanks, Em.”

She sets her own latte down - a tulip on the surface of the milk - and shrugs off her backpack. “I didn’t do it.”

“But you made it happen.”

“The barista thought it was my birthday at first, and I got the sense that a lot of people ask to have _happy birthday_ written in milk for themselves. Super brave and lonely.”

“Some people are just real divas on their birthdays,” Peter argues. “Flash would probably demand it.”

“That’s true.” MJ pauses. “But Flash is also super lonely.”

Peter nods, glancing down at his latte. “I don’t even want to drink it.”

“I paid eight dollars for it, so you better drink it.”

He takes a sip. It’s frothy and warm, tastes a bit like maple and honey.

“How’s your day been?” MJ asks.

Peter tells her about May and the pancakes. She asks why he thinks a diet of carbs and sugar is acceptable. Just because a spider bite gave him abs doesn’t mean he can eat crap. 

“It’s my birthday,” he reminds her.

“Who’s the birthday diva now?” she asks.

He laughs, kicking gently at her shin underneath the table before explaining how he and Ned built the Temple of Doom. She listens, leaning forward slightly, and Peter can’t believe she’s asking for minute details, a step-by-step recounting of their progress. MJ closes her eyes at one point to try and visualize the temple she didn’t see before they left his apartment. 

Peter thinks, if they weren’t already engaged, he’d drop down on one knee and propose right now.

Which reminds him: “Aren’t we getting married today? Shouldn’t we like, do that soon? It’s already after three.”

“The City Clerk’s Office closes at 3:45.”

“Oh my god.” Peter scrambles up. “We have to go.”

“Peter, sit down.”

He does.

“We need a marriage license first.”

“Oh.”

“I brought my laptop. We can do most of it online, and then we just have to go in person on Monday to finish the process.” She takes a sip of her latte and some foam sticks to her upper lip. She licks at it before swiping it away with her napkin. 

Peter loves her.

“What time do they open?” 

“Eight-thirty, but I have a dentist appointment at 10. I can meet you there at noon. I’m sure it’ll be busy, so expect a wait.”

“I can wait,” Peter says.

MJ drums her fingers against her mug, smirk smug. “You’d wait for me forever.”

“You’re worth it.”

“I know.” Her smile softens, her eyes twinkling like fairy lights. “So are you. And I’m better at waiting.”

“You are.” Peter’s not particularly patient, not good with stillness. “But I could do it for you. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“More than something,” she says, wrinkling her nose at the sincerity of her words, and Peter gently knocks his foot against her leg again. 

“Okay, so I’ll meet you at the City Clerk’s at noon.”

“Right. We get our marriage license, and then we get married there, too,” MJ clarifies.

Peter loves her so much, loves the sound of marriage in her voice. He reaches across the table and taps the pop of bone in her wrist. He doesn’t want to annoy her while she’s trying to tell him the technicalities of getting married, because apparently you cannot just show up, profess your love, and be pronounced husband and wife, but she catches him on his retreat, steepling their fingers before she laces them together. 

“There’s a 24-hour waiting period. But I have the library on Tuesday.”

“So, Wednesday?” Peter asks.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” Peter squeezes her hand.

“Very cool,” MJ agrees.

“August 14th is going to be our wedding anniversary,” Peter says.

“The day the Social Security Act was signed into law, the day the end of World War II was announced after Japan surrendered, and Halle Berry’s birthday.”

“Wow,” Peter exhales.

“Bombing Hiroshima was an inexcusable act of violence and a war crime.”

“Right.”

“Social Security is broken.”

“Yeah.” 

“Halle Berry’s pretty cool, though,” she says. Her thumb rubs against the skin between Peter’s thumb and pointer finger. “And I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Peter says. “Wanna fill out the license?”

“I do,” she says, attempting a wink.

Peter laughs and considers leaning across the table to kiss her eyelids before reluctantly letting go of her hand so she can retrieve her laptop.

After the application is submitted, MJ buys a berry danish for them to split, and when he kisses her on the way out, she tastes like sugar and raspberry. 

She asks about his class schedule for the fall semester at ESU, walking by a Duane Reade and a mom-and-pop Italian place. 

Peter’s excited for chemistry, obviously, and excited to get his mandatory English credit out of the way. He’s heard his calculus professor is obnoxiously difficult, and his microbiology professor is obnoxiously easy. 

MJ hums, but she doesn’t delve into her own scheduling dilemmas, doesn’t say if she’s been taken off the wait-list for the ancient literature class she wanted, fitting snuggly into her Tuesday and Thursdays between race in a polarized America and a block of foundations of political thought. 

“You want to marry me, right?” Peter asks.

“I asked you. I submitted our application less than an hour ago.”

“I know.” Peter presses his thumb against the back of her hand. “I just. May said long distance is hard, and with you and Ned both leaving the city, everything is going to be so different. I don’t want you marrying me because you’re scared we won’t make it otherwise. Or as a safety net, or… I don’t know.” 

“Peter," she says, serious. "Let’s go to the park." 

He furrows his eyebrows, frowning. “It’s okay if you don’t really want to. The application will expire.”

“Come on.”

He follows MJ to the park, and they walk along the water for a bit. His hand is sweaty and sticky in hers. The sun is still high, and the air is humid, but her silence is more oppressive, weighty and worrisome against Peter’s heart. 

She finds an open patch of grass underneath a tree, sitting cross-legged with her back against the trunk. Peter plops down across from her, running his hand through his hair. 

“I’m sorry if I said something, or if I made this weird, or--”

“Peter,” she says, softly. “Do _you_ really wanna marry me?”

“Yes,” he answers before she’s even finished working her mouth around the last vowel.

MJ smiles, wiping her palms against her knees. 

“I want to marry you, too,” she says. “Not because college is scary. Not because everything feels like it’s changing and I want something to stay the same. Not because you’re the safe option, and not because I want an excuse not to try new things or grow, and not because I’m scared we’ll grow apart.” 

Peter swallows. He feels his heart beating in his throat. 

MJ’s eyes are vulnerable, bright and open and filled with so much certainty and love that Peter wipes at his own to keep from crying.

“I know my parents would say there’s no point in rushing it if we’re so sure. We can wait and get married in four years, but if I’m sure, I don’t see the point in waiting. We lost five years, Peter, and it’s still weird. Because we also didn’t. I’m not losing and not _not_ losing another four because other people think this is a stupid idea.”

MJ tucks her bangs behind her ear, and Peter smiles a soft curve of understanding. 

“I’m stupidly in love with you. And there’s nothing stupid about it to me,” she says.

“I want to marry you because you love me right now, and you said you’d love me forever. I want to marry you because you inspire me to be a better person, but I know you’d love me if I stayed the same forever. I want to marry you because you like muffins better than scones, and because when that woman said that racist thing to me, you listened and rubbed my arm and didn’t minimize it and didn’t pretend you could relate. I want to marry you because you poorly read poetry to me when I asked you to, and you didn’t get upset when I laughed. I want to marry you, Peter. I just do. If you want to marry me, I _really_, really want to marry you.”

MJ blinks and a tear tracks its way down her cheek, and Peter grabs her hands again. 

“That’s not fair,” he says. “You said there are no vows in a ceremony at the City Clerk’s Office, and I don’t have any prepared right now.”

She shakes her head, freeing one hand to wipe at her cheek. Peter traces the gesture with his own thumb. He cradles her face in his palm, and she leans into it. 

“I love you so much, MJ. I want to marry you. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.”

In terms of things he’s wanted selfishly, just for him, it feels true.

He’s not thinking about how May will feel, or Ned, or the rest of the world. 

He just wants this one thing for himself. It didn’t work in Europe, when all he wanted was to relax and be a kid for a little bit longer. Mysterio showed up and ruined everything, the effects of his deception rippling beyond that vacation and into senior year. Convincing people Peter wasn’t Spider-Man was easier than convincing them Spider-Man wasn’t a murderer. They’ve mostly succeeded - with the help of same shape-shifting aliens.

And maybe it’s a faulty comparison, Peter wanting to be a kid last year and wanting to get married the next.

Because marriage is adult. 

Peter and MJ are both a young 18, but with MJ, Peter feels old enough for it. He’s had his heart for long enough, and if he and MJ could get through last year, the awful, tense part, and the comedown that followed, he believes they can get through anything. 

There’s nobody else he’d rather have and hold, to have him and be held by. 

Peter sits up on his knees and shifts his hand so his fingers nudge at the back of MJ’s head. He kisses her, a salty, sweet, sensational thing. 

He gets to kiss her for the rest of his life. 

“I love you,” he murmurs against her mouth, the thought of pulling back to make the words clearer unsatisfactory, requiring him to be farther away from her than he wants to be - than he needs to be. 

Her hands are on his shoulders, and he can feel the stickiness of drying tears on her face, and he says, “Don’t cry. I’ll write better vows later. I promise.”

MJ smacks his shoulder, but then her fingers twist in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer. 

A traffic accident keeps Peter busy, and he arrives at the City Clerk’s Office eight minutes to one. 

He finds MJ sitting in a chair by the wall, a piece of cardboard shoved underneath the front left leg to keep it balanced. Her book is cracked open in her hands, wear visible on the spine, phone resting against the crease formed between her hip and thigh. 

Peter shuffles toward her, apologizing when he accidentally shoulders into a man in a navy suit, the woman next to him wearing a lacy, white dress. 

“I’m so sorry I’m late.”

“One second,” she says, eyes scanning her page.

Peter bounces on the balls of his feet. 

She replaces her bookmark before looking at him, blinking slowly. 

“Hey MJ.”

“Hi fiance,” she says.

He breathes a sigh of relief and repeats, “Sorry I’m late.”

“It’s okay.” She lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I added us to the queue when I saw you left the scene. I figured if I’m going to marry you, I should get used to your tardiness.”

He chuckles, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

She removes her gray cardigan from the seat next to her and drapes it across her legs. Peter takes the seat she saved, his heart expanding how it always does - clockwork - when MJ shows she was thinking of him.

It’s really often. 

Peter’s heart must be as metaphorically big as a hot air balloon by now.

“You look really pretty,” he tells her.

“Thanks. You, too.” She reaches over, fixing some of the hair he tried to pat down after changing back into dress slacks and a dress shirt in an alley. “I think it should be about 40 minutes.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

She smiles at him, hooking her foot around his ankle. “Me and Mr. Jones.”

“Wait, I thought we weren’t changing our surnames? Did you want me to?” Neither of them checked the box when they filled out the form on Saturday, entering their information quickly. Peter could feel his heart beating fast against his ribs, could hear the hitch in MJ’s each time they finished a page and went on to the next. He didn’t stop her when she didn’t check the box, and she didn’t stop him, but they didn’t discuss it, either. 

“No.” She shakes her head and her curls fan around her shoulders. She’s so pretty his brain can’t comprehend it. “Peter Jones doesn’t have the same alliterative ring to it.”

He knows she’s thinking about his parents and Uncle Ben. She’s thinking about the name as a connection to May, Peter’s aunt by marriage, his aunt by love and support, and his aunt by so much more than a few words can articulate.

MJ knows how important Peter’s family is to him, that he’s lost so much, and that he doesn’t want to lose the name.

She wiped away Peter’s tears on the anniversary of Ben’s death, kissed his temple and listened to the story about Ben and May dressing up as Woody and Jesse the year Peter went trick-or-treating as Buzz. The story about the year Ben insisted he go as Darth Vader when Peter and Ned were going as Luke and Han Solo. How Peter found the idea embarrassing, feeling old enough to trick-or-treat without a chaperone, and wishing he’d relented and allowed Ben to dress up, too. They still had a chaperone, just one in jeans and a jacket. 

“Michelle Parker,” he tries. 

She scrunches her nose. “Maybe after I’ve established myself in the professional world. Can’t risk losing ground with the left because I’ve taken my husband’s name.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to. I don’t care about that.”

“I know.” She leans over to kiss him, chaste and nice. He can taste her chapstick. “But I do kind of like the idea of having May’s last name.”

“That is pretty awesome.”

“It’s definitely one of my favorite things about you.”

Peter wrinkles his brow. “That May and I have the same last name?”

“That I love your family. I’m going to let you be the one with a weird in-law dynamic.”

“Thanks,” Peter laughs. “Your mom has just stopped trying to kill me with her eyes in the last few weeks.”

“I wouldn’t get used to it.”

She’s right. Whenever everybody realizes they eloped, shit is going to hit the fan. Whether her parents find out August 15th, or when Peter and MJ are graduating from college, or some other hazy time in the future, they’re probably going to want to murder Peter. 

It’s going to be a Big Deal.

“I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts,” he decides, reaching forward to tuck a curl behind her ear for no other reason than he wants an excuse to touch her. 

She fiddles with her book, glancing down at the worn paperback cover, a corner bent off. 

“You’re in the middle of a chapter, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Read it to me?” Peter asks.

“If you promise not to ask questions when you have no idea what’s going on,” she says.

“Deal.”

When their number is called to get their marriage license, the man looks at their application, wrinkles around his eyes, skin around his jaw beginning to sag. He looks at them, back at their application, them, their application. He looks at them like they’re absolutely nuts before shaking his head and adopting his previous, bored expression.

They can’t be the first 18-year-olds he’s given a license

Peter and MJ present their identification, sign, and when the license is held out, real and official, MJ snatches it with a bright grin and overly saccharine “Thank you.”

The sun still radiates high in the sky when they leave the Clerk’s Office.

Peter’s starving, forgot for a second when MJ signed her name in careful, loopy cursive he’s never seen her write in before. He committed it to memory, tattooing the signature and the precision in which she wrote it into his brain and onto his heart. His stomach grumbles and reminds him, though, so they find a Chinese restaurant to get a lunch-dinner hybrid. 

“Should we bring someone on Wednesday?” Peter asks.

MJ readjusts the chopsticks between her fingers. “For what?”

“The guy said we’d need a witness.”

“The guy was two seconds away from calling our guardians to warn them that two consenting adults are making a perceived mistake.”

“Right. Yeah. But he didn’t actually give us any trouble. Plus, I’m pretty sure we still need a witness. I don’t think he made that up to stop us from following through.”

“You’re just trying to get me to let you tell Ned. And I swear to god, if you already told him, I’m going to divorce you.”

“I didn’t,” Peter promises.

“You told him the first time I went down on you, and he looked at me funny for an entire week, so I think my question is valid.”

Peter chokes on his rice, smacking his hand against his chest and coughing. “I didn’t tell him, MJ.”

She squints, and he feels red all over. She chews on a piece of tofu before she says, “Okay, I believe you, but it’s good to know you still haven’t looked up this process at all.”

“Hey,” Peter protests. “I’ve ironed my suit, and May walked in on me practicing tying a tie, and I had to cover and say I’m taking you to a fancy restaurant.”

She presses her mouth together. 

“Which I will also do.”

MJ rolls her eyes and smiles small. “I’m pretty sure somebody else also getting married will agree to be our witness, Peter.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” He picks at his food, adds: “I’ve been working on my vows, too.”

“If you did any research, you’d know they don’t do vows.”

“You told me that already, remember? And _I_ do vows.” He grins. Her eyes are soft and lovely in the too bright lights of the restaurant, and those eyes are the eyes he’s going to marry in two days, and he knows he’s going to feel even happier than he does right now, but he cannot fathom it. 

She makes him the happiest man alive just by being herself, by sitting across from him and looking at him. 

Maybe that guy at the City Clerk’s Office was right, not because they’re being young and dumb, but because Peter doesn’t think anybody has been this excited and happy about getting married before. 

An anomaly in the system.

That’s probably not true, realistically, but it feels true. 

It feels true when MJ says, “Okay, but I used all my good lines already, so I’m not doing a repeat.”

Peter doesn’t see MJ at all on Tuesday, so he sits on a rooftop overlooking Queens and calls her. 

“Hey, loser,” she says, not sounding as sleepy as she should this close to midnight.

“Hey, Em. Would you mind if I stopped by?”

“Tradition says we’re supposed to spend tonight apart.”

He sighs, the sound coming out fond because he knows she’s kidding and because he is very, very fond of her. “We’re not really doing traditional. And I miss you.”

“I’ll keep my window open,” she says.

Peter swings through the borough toward her apartment, the warmth of tonight pleasant, his heart full, and the light shining through her window beaconing him to a home that isn’t a place, but a feeling he gets when he’s near MJ.

He finds her in her pajamas, hair wrapped in a silk scarf, typing on her laptop. She shuts it when he climbs through her window, turning in her chair to look at him. “I’m getting married tomorrow, and I’m not sure my fiance will approve of strange superheroes crawling through my window, so this probably has to stop.”

“Who else is crawling through your window?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She waves her hand around. “You could take them. My fiance, on the other hand...”

Peter snorts, stepping away from the glass and any peeping Tom's eyeline to pull his mask off. “I think he likes me, so I’ll be okay.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You started it,” he says.

MJ shakes her head, standing up and pushing a damp curl off his forehead. “I missed you, too, for the record.”

“The record?” Peter widens his eyes. “Wow. How official.”

“I have the marriage license to prove it and everything.” She stands on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead. Peter closes his eyes, relaxes underneath the gesture, muscles loosening. “How was patrol?”

“Okay. Worse than yesterday. Helped a woman carry her groceries, stopped a break in. A mugging at gunpoint.”

“You okay?” she asks, palms soft and warm against his face, eyes focused. 

“I’m good.” He squeezes her waist, thumb brushing underneath her sleep-shirt, feels the little goosebumps in its wake. 

MJ always asks how he is before she ever asks about the people he helped. Peter thinks that’s backwards: the lady with the groceries squeezed his wrist and told him she never believed those news stories, that Spider-Man couldn’t possibly be a high school kid or a murderer. He called the police on the five guys attempting to rob an electronics store. They’ll have some bruises, but it’s not their main problem. The woman has all her belongings, but the emotional scars are going to linger. Those things are uplifting and devastating, more important than whether or not Peter has a bruise on his ribs that’ll heal by morning.

But MJ always asks about him, anyway. 

He loves her.

“Better now,” he says. 

She rolls her eyes. “No injuries?”

“Not tonight.”

“Okay.” She swallows, leaning down an inch to kiss him. “I love you, but I need to get my beauty sleep, Peter. Can’t show up exhausted for my own wedding.”

“I have it on good authority that the groom won’t mind.”

She laughs, ducking her head to rest against his shoulder. “A few minutes, then.”

MJ finds him a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt to wear so he doesn’t freeze in her overly air-conditioned apartment. They snuggle under her duvet, her head on his shoulder, scarf soft and smooth against his cheek as she tells him about her day: the kid who showed up in the last five minutes of the library program she was helping with and how the little girl started to cry when she was turned away, the old lettuce MJ peeled off her sandwich at lunch, and her first class syllabus posted online. 

Peter likes the cadence of her voice, the way MJ talks low and soft in case one of her parents get up to grab a glass of water in the middle of the night and knock on her door. He likes the feel of her body against his, and he likes how she gave the little girl who missed the program the sheet of constellations they’d used during it, her insistence that lettuce is inferior to spinach, and that most students probably aren’t checking their email and Blackboard accounts yet, so posting the syllabus only serves to stress out the dedicated. 

He likes that MJ can tell when he begins to drift off, ushering him back out her window. 

He likes that one day she won’t have to kick him out. That her home will be his, too, that her bed will be his, too. 

That he will be hers in every way possible, including the one, last, little way he isn’t yet.

They meet at the subway stop.

MJ arrives first, because of course she does, and when Peter catches sight of her, his breath catches in his throat. Her hair is pulled back loosely, just enough to get it away from her face, waves cascading down her shoulders. Her smile is wondrous, clamped down by her teeth against her bottom lip. 

She’s wearing the dress she wore in Prague, fingering the mismatched black dahlia necklace, and Peter’s heart races the same way it did at the opera and on the Charles Bridge and when she kissed him on Tower Bridge.

Except this is better than all of that. 

He loves her. 

He _loves_ her.

He loves hers so much he stumbles over nothing, and she laughs, a light, airy, delightful sound Peter wants to cause all the time. 

“Hi,” MJ says. “You look really nice.”

“You, too. Like, more than nice. Amazing, actually.”

“Thanks.” She ducks her head, smile blooming even more open and lovely. 

They walk hand-in-hand to the Manhattan City Clerk’s Office, different from the one in Queens where they picked up their license. 

Peter’s hand is sweaty, and MJ just squeezes, doesn’t pull away. 

They get to the office two minutes after it opens, and they have to wait another seven before another couple arrives. Their witnesses are the woman’s parents, and her mom agrees to witness Peter and MJ’s ceremony, too. 

They get a number before an employee ushers them to a waiting room.

Peter’s heart feels like it’s flopping around in his chest, doing somersaults in his stomach, and he bounces his leg until MJ rests her palm on his knee. 

“Are you nervous?” she asks.

“Yes,” Peter admits. “Not scared-nervous, though. Excited-nervous.”

“Me too.” She smiles the most beautiful smile at him, eyes already misty. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.”

He does. 

He really, really does. 

The words don’t feel like enough. 

They wait another fourteen minutes until they’re called to the east chapel.

“You and me?” MJ asks, flipping her hand on his knee, palm up, empty and waiting. 

Peter takes it. “You and me.”

The nerves that were rattling around Peter’s body while they were waiting dissipate when he and MJ face each other at the wooden podium, both of her hands in his. A sense of calm washes over him, something steady and comfortable and sure. MJ goes blurry with his tears when he says, “I do.” She wipes them away with the pad of her thumb. 

Her eyes are bright and wet, too. 

MJ says, “I do,” and the promise of forever warms Peter, bubbly in his toes and fingers, electric and undeniably right. Inexplicable and wonderful. 

The officiant proficiently performs the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ceremony, pronounces them husband and wife, and grants them permission to kiss. 

Peter leans up, and MJ leans down, and they meet in the middle. The kiss is short and sweet, and he wraps his arms around her, burying his nose in the crook of her neck and breathing her in: the jasmine of the perfume May gave her for her birthday, the strawberry of her shampoo, the fresh, clean scent of fabric softener that permeates all her clothes. 

“I love you,” he mumbles against her skin, trying to pull her closer. 

“I love you, too,” she whispers, nose chilly against the curve of his ear.

They congratulate the other couple and thank the bride’s mom for being their witness and for taking pictures on their phones outside the Clerk’s Office.

MJ traces her finger over the lettering on their certificate before she carefully puts it in the holder their graduation diplomas came in. 

“When we get our own place, we’ll get it framed,” Peter says. 

“Yeah,” she agrees, zipping it safely in her backpack. She looks at Peter exactly how she did before they got married, and it feels old and new at the same time. “I didn’t really plan anything for after.” She clears her throat. “My parents are at work.”

“I definitely want to consummate,” he says - rushes - causing a soft burst of laughter from MJ, which makes Peter flush and love her just a little more.

Every day, every moment, he loves her impossibly more. 

“But I, uh, I did plan something,” he says.

“I thought you might.”

He takes her hand again, will take her hand always, and leads her to the storage locker he rented outside Central Park this morning, and then to a free patch of green grass, spreading out the blanket and sitting so close to MJ their knees touch. 

They make up stories about other people milling about, eat the tomato and spinach sandwiches Peter made, and split the sparkling grape juice, pouring it into the two plastic wine glasses he purchased for the occasion.

When Peter kisses her, she tastes sweet and bubbly, both of their tongues stained from the juice. He cups her face, hand sliding back into her hair, waves soft between his fingers. 

MJ kisses back, fiddling with his shirt collar, jacket already folded next to the basket he hauled out of May’s closet. Her knuckles are warm against his skin, and he groans when she leans back, pulls him over her, tongue rubbing against the roof of his mouth. 

Her hair splays behind her head on the grass-stained and newly grape-juice-stained blanket, her other hand running up and down Peter’s spine. 

“We should go,” he says, mouth smearing from her lips to her jaw. 

They’re in a public park, noon fast approaching, business people just beginning to take their lunches, tourists awake and out in full force. 

They’re married, and he loves her, and he doesn’t want to spend the subway ride back to Queens with an erection. 

“I was promised some vows, husband,” she says, breathy and full of humor, fingers pressing into the notches of his spine, fitting like puzzle pieces. 

The word _husband_ coming out of her mouth makes Peter still, the happiness of it bursting underneath his skin like fireworks, the satisfied feeling of popping bubble wrap, the flexing of her toes against his leg because she took off her sandals when they decided the angry man on the phone, suit jacket wrinkled over his arm and sweat visible underneath his armpits, just learned the Starbucks sandwiches are pre-made. 

“You’re right, wife,” he says, the word foreign and brilliant as it wraps itself around his tongue, filling his mouth like it was meant to be there, like somehow he and MJ lost time. They got married as soon as possible, but it still feels like the world took something away from them.

Probably because it did, but not this. He won’t let it take this.

He plants a final kiss underneath her chin before pulling back, sitting up and helping lift her back off the blanket when she holds her hands up. 

MJ’s hair has gone a little frizzy, the bobby pins she used to pull it back still intact, but holding her hair with less taut precision. Her mouth is wet, lips bruised from his, and she licks at the corner with a purple-red tongue, and Peter loves her. 

“Okay. So.” He runs his hands back over his hair. 

“You love me,” she starts for him, pulling on her dress to straighten it out. 

“I really do,” Peter says. “I’m not good with words like you are, so I hope you’ll give me a little slack here.”

“Never,” she says around a smile. 

Peter laughs. “I love that about you, you know? You don’t give me free passes, even when I think I deserve them. Like when we missed the movie on your birthday because I left to follow a car chase. You said the police were on it, and I said, ‘I can help,’ and you said, ‘Or you could let the police try to do something good for once. They’re already tracking the piece of shit.’”

“I was right.”

“You were. And being angry that I helped stop a kidnapping is still crazy to me.”

She huffs.

“And I know they would have gotten him, anyway. And I’m not trying to rehash a fight right now. But I love that you would. Because we both know you had a point.”

MJ hums.

“You’re forgiving, and that’s important. Because you’re going to have to forgive me a lot over the course of forever. But I’ll try my best not to do stuff that requires forgiveness too often. I’ll do my best to show you how much you mean to me every day.” He swallows, wiping his hands on his pants. 

“Because you give me a reason to do stupid things like insert myself in car chases the cops already have covered. You remind me that humanity is good and worth the effort when I’ve seen the worst of it. You give me a reason to get up and keep going. You give me something to look forward to, because knowing you’re going to smile at me, or smack my arm, or kiss me and take my breath away gives me more strength than any spider bite ever could.

“I love you because you held a frozen bag of peas to my bruised side on your birthday even though you were half-furious and half-pretending to be. I love you because you love me and not just Spider-Man. I love that you asked me to marry you at 18. And I promise to love you back forever.”

Peter takes her hands, holding them like he did in front of the officiant. 

“I’ll stumble over reading poetry for you, and I’ll listen to you when you’ve had a good day or a bad day, and I’ll keep trying to make the world a better place for you, even if I won’t do half as good a job of it as you will yourself. I love you so much, MJ. This only covers a tiny fraction of it.

“Thank you for marrying me, but if you call me your husband in public again any time soon, it’s going to get really awkward, because it makes me feel so hot it’s insane.”

MJ laughs, loud and uninhibited, face scrunching with it, body shifting toward him, and Peter squeezes her hand to echo the way the sound squeezes around his heart. 

“I know we looked at rings, and everything was too expensive or too cheap and gaudy, but, um. I kind of made something for you.”

MJ tilts her head, eyes curious. 

Peter reaches into the basket, finds the little jewelry box he stole from May, and prays she won’t notice it’s missing. 

He hands the faux velvet covered thing to MJ with near-trembling fingers. 

He hears her breath catch, but he can’t read her expression. She doesn't say anything, staring at the rings. 

Peter panics. 

“I know it’s lame. And I’ll buy you a real one when I save enough money and we find something we both like. And you don’t have to wear it - obviously - and if you don’t want a real one, we can skip rings completely. It’s just that we were looking, so I thought. And it will probably disintegrate eventually, because my webs do that, so that's a potentially bad sign, but I reinforced it and, okay, now I realize how stupid it is, so--”

“Peter,” MJ says, firm and serious, holding out the ring he spun from webs and petals of a single black dahlia flower he bought special. “Put it on my finger right now.”

“Oh,” he breathes. “Okay.”

He slides it onto her ring finger, and she slides the twin onto his.

“You made this for me,” she whispers, staring at her hand in awe.

“Yeah.” Peter rubs at the back of his neck.

“I love it,” MJ says, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “I love you, Peter.” She shuffles onto her knees, kisses him, too deeply to be entirely innocent. “Take me home, or I might call you the H-word again.”

“If I take you home, do you promise to call me the H-word when we get there?”

“Definitely.” She splays her left palm over his heart. “But you have to call me the W-word.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to help it, honestly,” he admits. 

She smirks against his cheek, and says, “I’m counting on it.”

Peter loves her, is going to love her forever. 

And with her smile against his skin and her hand on his heart, he knows it like he’s never know anything, knows how forever really feels.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never done this before, but there's a first time for everything, so you can find me on twitter [@freakinguseless](https://twitter.com/freakinguseless), where I tweet every inane thought that comes out of my brain, or tumblr [@amyabbotts](https://amyabbotts.tumblr.com/), where I am attempting to relearn how to use the site as an actual person. 
> 
> Also, I would not recommend actually eloping at 18. Comments and kudos are appreciated. Thanks for reading!


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